The Lineup: Week of Sept. 26-Oct. 2, 2011

In this week’s OtherWords editorial package, my colleague Matias Ramos describes his latest immigration ordeal. It began when an employee of a company with a government contract attempted to expedite his deportation even though the Obama administration had announced that cases like Ramos’s are officially a low priority. Clearly, that kind of outsourcing raises ethical questions. But there are economic concerns too. As Beth Schulman explains, “on average, Uncle Sam spends nearly twice as much when the government outsources a job as it would if it just hired another ‘expensive’ federal worker.” Get all this and more in your inbox by subscribing to our weekly newsletter. If you haven’t signed up yet, please do.